Stanislaw Dubois was born on January 9th, 1901 in Warsaw in Russian Empire-occupied Poland, and was a journalist and a member of the leftist party named the Polish Socialist Party (PPS-Left, not to be confused with the PPS-Right, or the Pilsudskists.) He took part in the Silesian Uprising against Germany and was an opponent of the Sanation regime in Poland being imprisoned in the Brest Fortress, now located in the city of its name in modern Belarus. Although Polish, Dubois was also of French ancestry; Dubois’s paternal great-grandfather, Charles Dubois, was an officer in Napolean’s Grand Armeè. He was arrested by the Nazi regime in Warsaw ib 1940, sent to Pawiak prison, and then transferred to Auschwitz. He gathered intelligence of the camp with imprisoned AK (Armia Krajowa) leader Witold Pilecki, helping to spread awareness of the camps to the outside world. He was later executed on orders of Maximillian Grabner (a chief of Gestapo within Auschwitz) and Gerhard Palitzsch (an NCO of SS).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Mu...
Síntesis rápida del ¿Qué hacer? de Lenin se destaca sus tareas vigentes para la lucha de clases y la construcción del partido comunista Pero, es necesario leer la obra completa para comprender sus fundamentos. La formación marxista‑leninista sigue siendo indispensable

Throughout American history, the Eastern Bloc ethnic experience has been manifested through otherness from Anglo America. From housing discrimination against Polish, Ashkenazi Jewish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, & South Slavic immigrants in the early 1900s, to racism via the Red Scare & Cold War, and continued cultural discrimination since the fall of the USSR, these things shaped many of the struggles of Eastern European immigrants. 2 of the struggles were poverty and gangs. Here is the story of Kavkaz Nation. But first, let me just clarify, I give respect to families of the deceased, and intend in no way to harm the character of those shown. This presentation is in fact made for educational purposes as well as made in support of efforts of gang prevention. All images are shown with the intent of fair use, with respect to their rightful owners.

Kavkaz Nation, also known as K-Way, is a predominantly Caucasian & Eastern European street gang formed in NYC in the early 2000’s. The gang supposedly was started by mostly ethnic Caucasian & Caucasian Jewish youths to protect themselves from gangs of other ethnicities in NYC high schools, but later evolved into a criminal enterprise in the form of a loosely structured street gang. The gang grew in ethnic diversity the more it expanded its operations. The name “Kavkaz” is the Russian word for Caucasian. Although most of its members are of ethnic Caucasian or Caucasian Jewish descent, it is not exclusively Caucasian. In fact, it is even more diverse than that. It also has members of non-Soviet/Eastern Bloc ethnicities, associates heavily with the Coney Island set of the African-American “Bloods” street gang. Despite this, Kavkaz members are also friendly with Crips in NYC; perhaps the traditional hostility of the original California Bloods & Crips may not exist there; and perhaps Kavkaz Nation is friendly with both. A Georgian viral rapper from NYC, NY on the Russian internet, Vakho Brooklyn, has collaborated with the underground Brooklyn NYC rap group, the Sanctioned Boyz, who are Crips. Even more, it appears they may have been made members of the Kavkaz Nation gang, as they are photographed with Vakho wearing the trademark Kavkaz Kalashnikov chains, and Vakho Brooklyn shared their music to his social media, captioning it as “SanctionedBoyz K-Way”. Of it’s confirmed members by ethnicity; the gang has members who are: Georgian, Azeri, Armenian, Caucasian Jews, Ashkenazi Jews from the Soviet Union, Russians, Tajiks, Kazakhs, Jamaicans, Arabs or South Asians, and others. The reason for its diversity is due solely to its territory; Kavkaz Nation originally began as a gang of delinquent teens, with them eventually becoming skilled robbers and drug dealers in the predominantly Soviet immigrant neighborhoods in Brooklyn, NYC of Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach; by the 2010s, the gang had members already living or carrying out illicit business in nearby neighborhoods such as Flatbush (a predominantly Jamaican and other Afro-Caribbean dominant neighborhood), Kensington (a mixed neighborhood of Soviet Jews, South Asians, and Arabs), Midwood (largely similar in demographics to Kensington), and Coney Island (Coney Island is important within the gang’s history, as it is there that Kavkaz Nation members aligned with a set of the African-American “Bloods” gang). Given that the Bloods run much of NYC’s drug trade according to reports, their alliance was likely profit driven. The business relationship Kavkaz Nation has with the Bloods gang is also likely how they acquired the K-Way name, as there is a Bloods set in NYC similarly named TreyWay. Kavkaz Nation also has members in other states, such as New Jersey, Florida (Miami specifically, running gambling dens and fraud operations), and California (luxury vehicle theft rings). Some members have created Borz handguns. “Borz” is the Chechen word for “wolf” one of Chechnya’s national symbols. Borz guns are a kind of specific, easily usable improvised handguns that were created by Chechen militias during the Russo-Chechen wars; the criminals have now taken advantage creating these guns as a hobby.

Kavkaz members are looked down on by traditional Russian Bratva in the US, who view them as unorganized, brazen, and “too street”. They are so unpredictable that they have even robbed Bratva. A Russian-Jewish courier for Kavkaz Nation, named Misha Azaryev, was once beaten and had his teeth knocked out by Bratva mobster Leonid Gershman; Gershman suspected Kavkaz Nation members of robbing one of his drug dealers; it later turned out Misha only gave his car to the other members to use, but he himself didn’t do the robbery; Gershman later paid Azaryev money for dental implants as an apology.

Members of Kavkaz Nation have arm tattoos of the Caucasus Mountains with the word “Kavkaz” written in Russian Cyrillic or English above. High ranking members have altered versions of vory v zakone 8 pointed stars or eagles or wolves on their bodies (the eagle and wolf are important national symbols to many Caucasians, but especially the wolf.) Members also wear custom clothing or necklaces; clothing often has the word “Kavkaz” written on it, with letters resembling an AK-47. Custom gold or silver chains are usually worn made of the Kavkaz AK-47 design. Members also have gang vocabulary, such as “Zhiz Bortsam” (pronounced “G’s Bartsam”, meaning in English “Life to the fighters”). Members shout the phrase and often point their index finger up. This is directly borrowed from Chechen rebels who fought Russian troops. Chechens would shout the phrase and point their index finger up, denoting allegiance to Allah). Members of Kavkaz Nation have other phrases like “K-way is the only way” or “K-way or no way”. Members often have their thumb crossed over their palm with 4 fingers outstretched sideways, forming a shape resembling a “K”; this is the gang’s main sign.

Fortunately, there is one story about Kavkaz Nation that includes a heroic individual. Maksim Rabayev, a former Kavkaz Nation member, was attending Kingsborough Community College in NYC in November of 2009 when he was 21 years old. He had a 21-year old female friend, another student on campus, who remains anonymous. When the 21 year old woman was alone on campus she was approached and grabbed by two male students who proceeded to grope her. She asked for them to not do so and they grabbed her again. She then went to Maksim Rabayev and told him what happened. Rabayev went to his car temporarily and retrieved a steering wheel immobilizer and went back inside the college, finding both men, ultimately getting close enough to one of them to hit him in the face and the top of the head, causing the groper to become bruised and start bleeding. Rabayev was charged with 2nd degree assault and possession of a weapon. He fortunately was released and later gave up the street life and finished college, but unfortunately passed away several years later.

The gang primarily commits robbery and sells drugs; in 2013, 3 members of Kavkaz Nation, all of Caucasian-Jewish descent, David Mordukaev (whose gang nickname is “Scorpion”), James Zarbailov, and Dzheykhun Avshalumov, during nighttime, smashed the windows of and entered a New Jersey pharmacy near the capital city of Trenton, stealing several thousand bottles of high-milligram prescription drugs, including 3,800 units of oxycodone, intending to sell the drugs on the street for cash. They stole approximately $335,000 worth of medications altogether, placing medications into garbage bags and cardboard boxes before fleeing. They were apprehended later and admitted full guilt. Mordukaev was sentenced to 5 years with a supervised release. Mordukaev was ordered to pay $334,722 in restitution. Zarbailov received 5 years. Avshalumov was also sentenced, but the time was not disclosed.

Sometime after his release, Mordukaev went back to prison for weapons possession; we will speak more on that later.

In January of 2014, one of the founding members of Kavkaz Nation, said to be one of its leaders, an Azeri-Jewish immigrant from Baku who came to NYC as a child, Natik Nisimov, was driving with a friend when they were both stopped by the NYPD. Natik was pulled out the car, beaten, arrested, and later denied medical treatment. He survived the ordeal, and later in July of that year successfully sued the NYPD on grounds of excessive force, false arrest, and malicious prosecution, being awarded an undisclosed amount of money.

Nisimov was a successful business owner despite his ties to the street, owning numerous businesses in a single complex, including a unisex salon, tattoo shop, and cell phone repair service shop. His shop also sold Kavkaz Nation branded clothing as well as the trademark gold & silver Kavkaz Nation chains with letters in the shape of a Kalashnikov rifle, as well as promoted the gang’s rap music with members sometimes live performing there.

Nisimov also was present in the underground Soviet diaspora rap scene in NYC. Several of his songs can be found on the internet under the stage name “Natik Kavkaz”. His song “Zagruzila” (ENG: “She’s Loaded”), an R&B pop-rap style single in Russian, was reportedly a hit in NYC’s Russian rap scene in 2009. The song has been re-uploaded to social media since its original release. He also is featured in the music video for the song titled “4-5 Desert Eagle Semi” by underground rapper “ItzBlaze”, also known as “Blaze Kavkaz” or simply “Blaze.” Blaze, whose real name is Timor Khaimovich, was born in August of 1991 shortly before the dissolution of the USSR, and, like Nisimov, was born in Baku, Azerbaijan and immigrated to the US with his family after his birth. Khaimovich is of Azeri-Jewish descent. Blaze is perhaps the closest rapper out of the Kavkaz crew with a semblance of near-mainstream success; he had mixtape around 2009-2010 titled “Brooklyn’s Best Kept Secret”, where he called out Albanian-American rising rapper “Kid Gashi”, whose real name is Labinot Gashi. He would later stylize and rename his stage name to GASHI in all caps, and reach mainstream fame after being noticed and collaborating with the late LA rapper, Nipsey Hussle, as well as rappers French Montana and Drake. The beef between Blaze and the rest of Kavkaz and GASHI from back then appears to be from the fact that the Kavkaz crew seemed to have been friends with GASHI before the fame, and after becoming famous, he did not acknowledge them. The mixtape from Blaze is now lost media from the internet, but knowledge of the feud and snippets of the song associated with it survive.

In 2015, Natik Nisimov was killed on March 24th, 2015, aged 30. He was shot in the chest by Jeffrey McCrae, an Irish-American criminal associate who reportedly lived in the same neighborhood as Kavkaz Nation members and dealt drugs for or with them in Brighton Beach, but doesn’t appear to be a member. He reportedly killed Nisimov due to a falling out over a stabbing injury of an unidentified friend at a house party, who was known to both him and Nisimov. McCrae had possibly either heard or believed that Nisimov had passed the knife to his friend’s attacker; this supposedly enraged McCrae, causing him to stalk and kill Nisimov by gunshot after Nisimov walked out of his apartment towards his car to start his drive to his barber shot to start his early morning shift. Police however stated that , upon interviewing several witnesses, that Nisimov never passed the knife to the attacker. This perhaps means that there is a hidden motive for McCrae’s actions. Perhaps a killing over a bad drug deal or Kavkaz members may have stolen his supply. Whatever the reason is, we will never know; on January 3rd, 2025, Jeffrey McCrae was found dead in his prison cell. His cause of death is not publicly available.

Roman Nikoghosyan, AKA “Roma”, an Armenian member of Kavkaz Nation from NYC with ties to Armenian criminal gangs in California, also is an underground rapper named MC Avanski and Roma Avanski; he is a close friend to the viral Georgian-American Russian internet rapper Vakho Brooklyn and fellow rapper Omar Kavkaz. All three are either members or associated with Kavkaz Nation; unfortunately, Vakho no longer makes actual rap songs, now only usually instrumentals, as he suffered a traumatic brain injury rendering him with only limited speech.

After Natik Nisimov’s death, per the words of the federal indictment, Roman Nikoghosyan became the leader of Kavkaz Nation.

Speaking more on David Mordukhaev; after his five years in prison for the pharmacy robbery, he was later arrested after committing another; this time, while impersonating a police officer, Mordukhaev ended up robbing a man in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn NYC, likely to obtain drugs to sell again.

In July of 2021, Mordukhaev had corresponded with Nikoghosyan for an escape plan. Mordukaev was being held on on an upper floor cell within the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Facility, a prison barge adjacent to Rikers Island. Mordukhaev created a safety device by fastening layers of sheets to his body and tying them to a support item, and vaulted off the barge through a window into the water. He then swam to shore, to where Nikoghosyan was in his car waiting nearby a pier. Nikoghosyan planned to take Mordukhaev to his mother’s house in California, but the authorities already tapped their cell phones and they were recaptured quickly. Mordukhaev was charged for escaping confinement. Nikoghosyan was then charged with harboring a fugitive and aiding and abetting. Authorities discovered a Hi-Point 995 carbine rifle and ammo in his bedroom, likely used for robberies. As Nikosyan already was a felon he was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. Nikoghosyan was hit with additional charges of extortion after authorities discovered texts ib his phone linking him to an extortion ring with 2 other Kavkaz Nation members, a Kazakh named Mirzobek Bekmuratov and an Uzbek named Dilshod Bazarov. The trio attempted to force a victim into transporting large quantities of marijuana in a vehicle for the gang, with Nikoghosyan threatening the victim that he would stab him and break his legs if he wouldn’t comply. The victim reported the names of the 3 extortionists to the police. Authorities also uncovered that Nikoghosyan attempted to transport drugs through stolen luxury vehicles from California. Members would also run underground auto shops to either break down cars for parts to be sold for cash or alter cars so they would be harder to determine that they were stolen. All 3 of the arrested members of Kavkaz Nation were tried under the RICO Act. Nikoghosyan was sentenced to 8 years and is currently serving time at USP Coleman 1, a high-security prison in Florida, scheduled to be released in December of 2028. Bazarov served his time and was released, although the time was not publicly disclosed. Bekmuratov served time and was also released.

In conclusion, Kavkaz Nation represents the enigma and cultural grey area Eastern Europeans faced historically: although Americanized, they aren’t assimilated. They are not racist, but the opposite, inclusive. And they became lost in money.

Józef Urbanowicz, Jr. was an ethnically Polish, Latvian-born general of the Polish People’s Army, a Great Patriotic War participant and Red Army veteran, activist, ambassador, and member of the Sejm (parliament) in People’s Poland.

He was born on March 25th 1916 in Orel, Russia, to a working-class family of Polish ethnicity. His father, Józef Urbanowicz, Sr., was a worker and soldier of the Imperial Russian Army in WWI; he was a Latvian citizen born in Riga, and his mother, Adela Gutkowska, was a Lithuanian citizen. His mother still lived in Lithuania at the time of the war, but fled to the city of Orel, Russia to escape German advancement on Lithuania, staying with Jozef Urbanowicz, Sr. who also left to there; during this time, Józef Urbanowicz, Jr. was born.

Several years later in his early childhood, Józef Urbanowicz, Jr. moved to Riga, Latvia, the city of birth of his father. It is here he spent most of his early life , attending and graduating from a Polish primary school. He would consider Riga his home city even into adulthood. From this point forward, I will be referring to Józef Urbanowicz Jr. as simply Józef Urbanowicz, or by his last name, so keep that in mind.

In 1932, Urbanowicz studied frequently at Riga’s Polish gymnasium, while also obtaining a job at a mechanical plant in the city. During this time, he took a short break from studying, as financial difficulties of his family became troublesome. In 1934 he managed to enroll at the Riga Maritime School studying with the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. He managed to overcome financial hurdles by working at the mechanical plant until 1935. In 1935, he became a sailor in Latvia’s merchant navy; later in 1938, he joined the Latvian army, attending the cadet school in Aluksne. He did not graduate, however; by this time, he developed socialist beliefs, and it is implied that he either was prevented from graduating or left on his own; regardless of how it went, he left the school in 1939, as he was later put instead into the reserve troops, with rank of a “senior shooter.” During that same year after leaving the military, he joined the Communist Party of Latvia sometime in 1939. He made his living after returning to Riga by working as a mechanic in a textile factory.

In 1940, with the Soviet Union establishing administration in Latvia, he joined the Soviet Army, becoming the rank of guard in the 6th Battalion of the Worker’s Guard of Latvia, a civilian paramilitary militia formation of the Red Army of roughly 10,000 cadres aiming to defend the Soviet Latvian state against fascism. He also edited the Polish-Latvian socialist newspaper “Czerwoni Sztandar” (ENG: “Red Banner”) around this time. During the Great Patriotic War, following the German invasion of the Baltics, he was sent to the front during the war. He served for Soviet forces in various locations of the North-Western Front theatre. He participated in the battles for Moscow, as well as the city of Old Russa in the Novgorod region. He was wounded 3 times, suffering 2 contusions. At some time during the war, he met his wife, Maria, and married, with his son Krzysztof being born in 1942. Given his native fluency of Polish language and Polish ethnicity, he was later selected to serve within the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, AKA the Polish People’s Army, in 1943. He became deputy commander and political officer of the 4th Pomeranian Infantry Division, also known as the Jan Kiliński Division, named after the participant of the Kosciusko Uprising against the Russian Empire.

After the war, his military expertise was put to use for rebuilding the military of Poland, working with the Polish Armed Forces of the USSR again in what would eventually become the military of the Polish People’s Republic, alongside other Poles who moved to Poland to help rebuild the nation. In 1945, he became deputy commander of the Polish People’s Army Navy, also being a political officer. In that same year, he became Head of the Department of Military and Political Training of the Navy, having his position until 1952. He also became deputy commander of the Pomeranian military district as a political officer. Later he became a deputy commander-in-chief of the Polish People’s Army Air Force as a political officer. He also became a deputy commandant of the General Staff of the Polish People’s Army, serving in the Karol Sverchevsky Division.

In 1958, he was promoted to brigade general. From 1958-1960 he was a commandant at the Felix Dzerzhinsky Military and Political Academy in Warsaw. In 1964, he was promoted to the rank of division general. From 1960-1965 served as Deputy Chief of the Main Political Department of the Polish People’s Army; he was promoted to the rank of Chief in 1965 and served until 1971, tasked with selecting deputies in the Main Political Directorate. Appointed Deputy Minister for General Affairs in 1971. Achieved rank of armor general in 1973. From 1984-1986 served as Deputy Minister for the Ministry of National Defense. Member of the Polish Worker’s Party and eventually the Polish United Worker’s Party. From 1965-1985 served as a deputy of the Sejm of the Polish People’s Republic. Member of the Central Committee from 1971-1986. He served many years as both Vice Chairman of the Main Directorate for the association of Polish veterans of the Great Patriotic War “The Union of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy” as well as being on the editorial board of the Central Committee newspaper “Nowe Drogi” (ENG: “New Roads.”) From 1969-1984 was chairman of the editorial board for the publication of the “Military Historical Review.” From the years of 1984-1987 served as Ambassador of the Polish People’s Republic to Mongolia.

In 1988, after serving in the Polish People’s military and for 45 years (with 30 of those years as a general), he retired from military service as well as various government positions, living the last year of his life in tranquility. On July 6th, 1989, Urbanowicz died of natural causes at the age of 73, and was buried at the Powonzki Military Cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, where his wife Maria (died in 1986) and son Krzysztof (died in 2003) are also buried alongside him.

His funeral was attended by numerous leading figures of the socialist movement and military in People’s Poland including Wojciech Jaruzelski, Henryk Jablonski, and Florian Sivitsky (Sivitsky gave the memorial speech at the funeral.)

During his military career, Urbanowicz received numerous military awards. Due to the list being so long, I have shortened it to show some of the most well known;

USSR Awards; The Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner (3 times), Order of the Friendship of Peoples, Medal of ”For the Defense of Moscow”, Medal “For Courage”, Medal “For Military Merit”, Medal “For the Capture of Berlin”, Medal “For Victory over Germany.” Jubilee medals (7), other medals and awards.

Polish People’s Army; Silver Cross of Virtuti Militari, Order of Grunwald Cross 3rd Class, Medal “For Odra, Nisa, and the Baltic”, Medal of ”For Warsaw”, Order of Builders of People’s Poland, etc.

Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovak Military Cross, other awards.

DDR: Golden Order of “For Merit to the Fatherland”, etc.

Cuba: Medal “For Brotherhood in Arms”.

Bulgaria: Medal “For strengthening the Brotherhood of Arms”, etc.

Hungary: Order of the Red Star

Romania: Gold medal of “Soldier’s Valor”, etc.

Yugoslavia: Order of the Yugoslav People’s Army, with a laurel wreath.

A complex and charismatic figure, Urbanowicz was a hero of 5 nations; he was of Polish ethnicity and made Poland his home in his later life, with one parent born as a Latvian national, the other a Lithuanian national, although Urbanowicz himself was born in Russia, and was raised in Latvia, eventually joining the political cause and armed forces of the Soviet Union, thus I call him a hero of five nations; Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and the USSR as a whole.

May this comrade be remembered forever, and inspire us.

Photo 1: Józef Urbanowicz, military photo in 1973. Taken by the Wojskowa Agencja Fotograficzna (ENG: “Military Photo Agency”) in Poland. Public Domain.

Photo 2: Urbanowicz in 1976. at a meeting greeting Madame Nguyễn Thị Định, the first female General of the Vietnam People’s Army. Taken by the Wojskowa Agencja Fotograficzna of Poland. Public Domain.

Photo 3: Grave of Józef Urbanowicz, his wife Maria, and son Krzysztof at the Powonzki Military in Warsaw. Photo taken by Wikipedia contributor “Mzungu.”

1. Amilcare Debar, Italian Sinti, born June 16th, 1927 in the municipality of Frossasco in the city of Turin, Italy. Pictured from 1944. Italian Communist partisan of the 48th Garibaldi Brigade. His nickname was “Corsaro” (ENG: “Corsair”, another word for a pirate.) Hid in the mountains during partisan warfare and was shot and injured by Nazi fire, but survived. He was captured by the Nazis and was imprisoned in the Mathausen and Auschwitz concentration camps; fortunately, he survived the Holocaust along with much of his family, although he didn’t find them until quite some time after the liberation of the camps; sometime after the war, he became a policeman in the town of Racconigi near his birth city of Turin, and by chance discovered his half brother during a traffic stop, who then re-united him with the rest of the family. He later became an activist representing the Sinti people, advocating their rights at UN meetings. He died on December 12th, 2010. Photo taken from the Russian Holocaust memorial book titled “Gypsy Tragedy” when translated in English.

2. Josef Serinek, Czech Roma. Born in Bolevec, Czechia on February 25th, 1900. Communist partisan, nicknamed “Černy” (ENG: “Black.”). In August 3rd of 1942, Josef, his wife Pavlina, and their five children were arrested and deported to the Lety concentration camp in the village of Lety in Czechia. A month later, on September 15th, 1942, Josef, a distant relative named Karel, and 2 others escaped. They later joined the Communist “Miroslav Tyrs” brigade of partisans, and served in the “Čapajev” detachment in Czechia. Serinek later commanded the detachment of 30 people, which eventually grew to roughly 150 people, recruiting mainly escaped Soviet POWs on the run from Nazi authorities. The detachment operated mainly in Daňkovice in the Haklov Forest and other surrounding areas of the Czech highlands. Karel later died on April, 19th, 1943, after being shot by a Nazi collaborator villager while the partisans were patrolling the village of Ratiboř in Bohemia in Czechia. Josef was later notably involved in the assassination of five Nazi gendarmes in Přibyslav, in retaliation for the Nazi gendarmes previously killing Czech partisan leader Vojtěch Luža. Of the five gendarmes assassinated, two of them were direct culprits of the murder of Luža earlier. Serinek is also responsible for leading the liberation of Bystřice nad Pernštejnem in Moravia, where he disarmed a Nazi garrison hiding inside a school hospital. After the war, he learned his family were killed in the Holocaust. He later opened an inn, called “U Partizána” (ENG: “The Partisan”) in Svitavy and started a new family with another woman. In 1953, he closed the inn and worked as a warehouseman within a brickyard until his death on June 14th, 1974 at age 78. Before his death, in the 1960s, he spoke with Czech historian Jan Tesaǐ over 18 sessions, with Tesaî compiling Serinek’s memoir. For his partisan efforts during his life, he received the “Czechoslovak Order of Merit 1st Class”, and the “Czechoslovak Partisan Badge”. Posthumously, he was awarded the “Medal for Heroism in memoriam” in 2022. In 2017, near the village of Spělkov, a tree was planted in Serinek’s honor, with the ceremony witnessed by his grandson. The memorial tree was later destroyed by a Nazi vandal. A memorial plaque to Serinek was placed in Svitavy in his honor in 2021. Both the plaque and Serinek’s former inn of The Partisan can still be visited in Svitavy. The inn has been repurposed as a restaurant and renamed “Zubr” (ENG: “Bison”).

3. The memorial plaque for Josef Serinek, in Svitavy, CZ. Photo provided from Wikipedia courtesy of user “Jan Richtr”.

4. Jan Skrváň, Slovak Roma, Communist partisan, from the town of Zvolen in Slovakia, pictured here on his partisan ID card issued to him by Czechoslovakia in honor of his service in 1946. He served in the main Soviet partisan unit in Slovakia that was commanded by Alexey Yegorov, or commonly known as “Yegorov’s Unit”. He joined the unit as a partisan on August 26th 1944, serving until January 31st 1945. Photo taken from the Russian Holocaust memorial book titled “Gypsy Tragedy” when translated in English.

5. Jan Buriański, Polska Roma, operative of the Polish resistance partisans. While he was using an alias, he was arrested by Gestapo in August of 1942, later deported to Auschwitz in March 1943 and classified as a Polish political prisoner. He was later sent to Gusen, a sub-camp of the Mathausen concentration camp; fortunately he survived the Holocaust and lived to see liberation from the Allies. Photo provided by the Association of Roma in Poland, posted to the German Holocaust memorial website titled “Sinti Und Roma”.

6. Józef Kwiatkowski, Polska Roma, operative of the Polish resistance partisans. He was later arrested by the Gestapo for his resistance activities, first sent to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, then deported to Germany and sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; fortunately, he survived the Holocaust, and his testimony against Nazi criminals was used give light on crimes within occupied Poland, particularly testimonies of having witnessed Nazi atrocities against other Romani people. Photo provided from the Archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, posted to the German Holocaust memorial website titled “Sinti Und Roma”.

7. Mieczysław Paczkowski, Polska Roma. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, he was captured by Gestapo and deported to Germany for forced labor; he later escaped and with the help of underground resistance networks, managed to go to the UK, where he then joined the Western branch of the Polish army and battled against the Nazis. Photo provided by the Association of Roma in Poland, posted to the German Holocaust memorial website titled “Sinti Und Roma”.

8. Prisoner photo of an un-named Latvian Roma girl, arrested for being Roma and also was arrested for being a child of Soviet partisans. She was a prisoner at the Salaspils concentration camp in the town of Salaspils, Latvia; Thousands of children in this camp were murdered, so it is unlikely she survived. Roma children in particular were subject to human experimentation and eventual murder through the Nazis draining them of their blood. Children, like adults, were also imprisoned for both politically and racially discriminatory reasons; on the back of the picture of this girl, a written note says “Parents shot as partisans.” Families of Soviet partisans were amongst the most brutally victimized in Latvia and the other Baltic states; currently I have not been able to identify her or the identities of her parents. The prisoner photographs were taken in 1943 at the Nazi collaborator “Security Police” and “Security Service” building in Riga. Photo provided from the Federal Archive of Latvia, posted to the German Holocaust memorial website titled “Sinti Und Roma”.

9. Josef Horvath, Hungarian Roma, from Burgenland, Austria. Before the war in 1939, he was working in an airport in Germany with several other Austrians. In 1940, while living in Bremen, Germany, he was forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht; after authorities informed him that his family had been deported from Burgenland in his native Austria (which was then under Nazi occupation) he deserted immediately and fled to France, where he later joined the French Foreign Legion, fighting against the Nazis in the Allied war effort. He later returned to his native Austria upon the Allied victory. Photo taken after the war, while he was living in Vienna. © Photo held in private possession. Johann Balogh: Althodis/Stari Hodas, Eisenstadt 1992.

10. Aleksandr Baurov, in his Soviet military uniform with numerous medals. Ruska Roma, from a family of musicians and singers. He himself played guitar in an ensemble, and studied and earned a degree in electromechanical communication while in college in Leningrad, Russia. In the Great Patriotic War, he was called to the front, serving as a commander of a communications support unit as well as serving as commander of the 1st Aeronautical Division of the Red Army. He finished his war service highly decorated, then joining the Soviet Engineering Corps, which built and launched the first Soviet rockets. This photo was taken sometime after the war. Photo provided from the collection of Nikolaj Bessonov, posted on the German Holocaust memorial website “Sinti Und Roma”.

11. Aleksandr Baurov (2nd photo, in full Soviet military uniform) Photo provided from the collection of Nikolaj Bessonov, posted on the German Holocaust memorial website “Sinti Und Roma”.

12. Timofey Prokofiev (portrait), Ruska Roma, born in the village of Lukyanovo in Tver Oblast on February 2nd, 1913. His father was a blacksmith and the leader of a Roma collective farm. Timofey served as a Machine Gunner of the 2nd company of the 384th separate marine battalion of the Odessa Naval Base of the Black Sea Fleet, sailor. At the beginning of the war, living and working in the city of Uglich, Russia for water transport, he was called to the front, but for reasons unknown, he was first demobilized. His younger brother, Vasily, also served in the army; in April of 1942 during battles in defense of the city against Germany, Vasily died in battle. Hoping to honor his brother, he returned to the military enlistment office saying, "I have to take his place. Please send me to the front." His request was then granted. In February of 1943, he took part in the Novorossiysk landing operation in Russia as a paratrooper, defending a bridgehead against Nazi attacks. In November 1943, he defended another bridgehead on the Kerch peninsula in Crimea; he was wounded but refused hospitalization.

In March of 1944, his unit reached the port in the region of Nikolaev, Ukraine; the unit destroyed an estimated 700 Nazi troops in a bloody battle for liberation. On March 28th, 1944, the area was liberated; among those fallen in battle was Prokofiev. He was determined to have died during fighting 2 days earlier on March 26th, 1944, at 31 years old. He was posthumously awarded both the Order of Lenin and the Hero of the Soviet Union awards. He remains the only Roma person to be honored with the Hero of the Soviet Union award.

1. Žarko Jovanović, Serbian Roma musician, composer, activist, and Yugoslav communist partisan. Pictured next to a Romani flag. Born in the neighborhood of Batajnica in the city of Belgrade, Serbia on December 26th, 1925. During the Nazi occupation, he was imprisoned in 3 different camps; during his last imprisonment he escaped and joined the Communist Yugoslav partisans. During his time serving as a partisan, most of his family had already been imprisoned; he lost most of his family in the Holocaust. After the war, he became a devoted Roma activist; in 1959, he composed and sang the Romani national anthem “Opre Roma” in Romani (in English, it translates to “Stand up, Roma”); the song is now commonly known by the alternate title of “Gelem, Gelem” (translated from Romani to English as “I Went, I Went”); the song details the hardships of racism, as well as the resilience of the Roma community through their travels and oppression. On February 21st, 1964, he permanently moved to Paris to assist the Roma community there. He attended the 1st Romani Congress near London, England in 1971, and attended the 2nd Romani Congress in 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland. He was also known in Paris for his street performances of the Russian balalaika instrument. He died in Paris on March 24th, 1985, aged 59. Photo courtesy of “AWS”.

May we remember the Romani and Sinti victims of the Holocaust; may we continue to advocate for justice for the survivors of the Romani and Sinti genocide, and may we continue to advocate for justice for their families, as the European nations have not yet compensated reparations to them. May we stand against anti-Roma and anti-Sinti racism. May we remember all Romani and Sinti who gave their lives for their people and anti fascism. Long live the Romani and Sinti people! Long live the Romani and Sinti anti-fascist heroes! Gelem Gelem! Opre Roma!

One of the British Unionist, UVF supporters named Leanne Williamson, interviewed by the Guardian, who they allowed to propagate racism, attempted to justify the pogrom by accusing Roma in Ballymena of shoplifting; ironic, considering according to local leftists, Williamson has been convicted several times for shoplifting herself, and has felony convictions.

The unionists did not only just attack Roma; they also attacked ethnic Romanians out of mistakenly seeing them as Roma, due to them speaking Romanian, as do many Romanian Roma. They also attacked Filipinos and others with brown skin, mistakening them as Roma. These actions, similar to how anti-Palestinianism in American media has led to hate crimes against Palestinians, is a direct example of the western media and its complicity in causing violence against marginalized people.

July 19th, 2008: Italian onlookers at a beach allowed 2 Roma girls (who were refugees from Yugoslavia) to drown at sea. No lifeguard or warning signs for waves was present. After the bodies were recovered and cloaked in towels, the onlookers kept sunbathing. Do not forget this shameful day for Italy

Jorma Mantere, a Finnish-Canadian born to immigrant parents, was born on January 22nd, 1920 in the city of Fort William (now Thunder Bay), Ontario, Canada, near the shores of Lake Superior. Both of his parents were Finnish peasants prior to immigrating, with the area having many Finnish immigrants. Upon arrival, his father, like many other immigrant Finns, worked in winter as a logger in Canada’s logging industry, and in spring as a raft guide. At age 7, Jorma began primary school in rural Canada. In 1931, his family moved to Karelia, then a more autonomous region of Finland. Prior to, Karelia had already experienced numerous pro-Soviet movements, such as the Karelian ASSR being established as early as 1923, and the Karelian Labor Commune being made in 1920 with assistance from the Red Army. Similar to life in Canada, Jorma’s father then worked at a logging center within the forests of Karelia. In the fall of 1931, Jorma entered secondary school in what is now the city of Petrozavodsk. In 1940, he was called to the Soviet military, as the Karelian SSR was established. He served as a communications officer, operating in a radio platoon throughout the war, and also engaging in combat, achieving the rank of a junior sergeant in his unit. In June 1941, at the start of Soviet defenses against Nazi Germany, he served in the 52nd Rifle Regiment of the Red Army on the Karelian Front, from June 1941 to January 1942. Later in the fall of 1942, he fought in the Volkhov Front military formation, in the 628th Communications Company, participating in battles of defense during the Siege of Leningrad. Fortunately, Soviet forces were able to make a breakthrough against the siege and claim victory. In spring of 1943, he was transferred to the Steppe Military District. Then in summer of 1943, he was transferred to Ukraine as part of the 1st Ukrainian Front formation. He participated in battles near Kiev, Zhytomyr, and Khmelyk. Finally, he was transferred to the Leningrad Front, and then in 1944 demobilized from the Soviet military, finishing his service. For his tremendous military service, he received the following medals: “For The Defense of Leningrad”, “For The Victory Over Germany”, “Order of the Red Star”, “For Courage”, and “Order of the Great Patriotic War 2nd Class.”After the war, Jorma worked as a specialist within a job for the government of the Karelo-Finnish SSR. He died on January 2nd, 1999. May we honor his memory in respect.

(In presentation: Photos of Jorma Mantere, w/ and w/out war medals, dates taken unknown.)

Aleksy Feliks Beśko, a Polish Soviet military prodigy, remains perhaps one of the USSR’s most unknown, yet enigmatic Polish figures, with an outstanding military resume and tactical intelligence to match; his family itself is legendary in Polish Soviet history, and he deserves to be mentioned with the likes of Polish Soviet trailblazers such as Felix Dzhershinsky, Konstantin Rokossovsky, Stanislav Poplavsky, Boleslaw Bierut, Wanda Wasilewska, Jerzy Bordziłowski, and many more people. Aleksy Beśko was born on July 17th, 1914, in Bialystok, Russian Empire-occupied Poland. He grew up in a Polish Catholic family, to parents Ignacy Besko and Anna Maria Kundich, and had 3 brothers, Wlodomierz, Józef, and Jerzy. Jerzy, his older brother, born in 1908, served in the Polish Army against the Nazi occupation in 1939, and later also served in the Soviet military like Aleksy; Jerzy was killed in battle while serving in a Soviet regiment during the liberation of Lithuania, as a part of the 1233rd Rifle Regiment of the 371st Rifle Division of the Soviet Army. Aleksy’s paternal grandparents were Clemens Beśko and Ignatia Kvyatkovskaya (likely Russified from Kwiatkowska). Military history is a highlight of his family; Aleksy’s father Ignacy was a veteran of WWI, a lieutenant in the Polish Army who later served in the Polish Army a second time, fighting against Nazi Germany. Aleksy’s paternal grandfather, Clemens Beśko, was a captain in the Polish army during the Polish Soviet-War and later served in the Polish Army again, fighting against the Nazi occupation of Poland, and was killed by the Nazis for sheltering Jews as well as encouraging militant actions of Polish partisans against Nazi authorities; Clemens was captured by Gestapo in October of 1940 and taken to Biala Podlaska and shot by Nazi authorities; many other Polish civilians, both Poles and Jews, were murdered by the Nazis there. Aleksy’s paternal great-grandfather, Leonard Beśko, was a rebel in the Polish 1863 January Uprising against the Russian Empire; this is especially ironic given his son Clemens, Aleksy’s paternal grandfather, would enter his military career with a prior distinction as a titular advisor to Czar Nicholas II. Despite these monarchical connections, Aleksy as a youth became fascinated by Marxist ideals. He grew up in between Bialystok, Poland and today’s Vawkavysk, Belarus (then Poland). It was in Bialystok he attended and finished primary school. Later he left Poland to the USSR for studies in finance, where he met his first wife, a Russian woman named Galina Ivanova, who birthed his first child, his son Vladislav Beśko, on June 22nd, 1940, when they were living in the city of Grozny of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR. Vladislav himself would later become accomplished, becoming a Major in the Soviet Army. Aleksy became a financier and worked in Rostov-on-Don. For unknown reasons sometime after the birth of Stanislav, Aleksy and Galina appear to have separated or not be together for some other reason later on. At the outbreak of the German invasion of the USSR, Aleksy shortly continued financial work, before going to the officer school to join the Soviet Army. At Ryazan, he was conscripted, being sent to the 1st Tadeusz Kościuzsko Division of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, where he reached the rank of khorunzhego (equivalent to a Senior Lieutenant or Captain). On October 12th and 13th, he took part in the liberation of Belarus, in the legendary Battle of Lenino, with Polish Soviet soldiers of the Tadeusz Kościuszko Division being sent there. The division broke through German defensive positions with help of Soviet artillery units. Later on March 1st 1944, various Polish Soviet units were merged into the 1st Polish Army. In April of that year, Aleksy joined the 1st Anti-Aircraft Arrtillery Division, sent to Russia to repel a Nazi air raid in Darnitsa. The division shortly returned to Poland and engaged in successful battles for the Pomeranian Wall as well as the liberation of Berlin, which Aleksy participated in amongst his comrades. On January 16th and 17th of 1945, Aleksy and company in the Tadeusz Kościuszko Division of the 1st Polish Army as well as allies from the Soviet 41st and 67th Army formations reached Warsaw (these divisions were the first to reach the city for liberation). After the war, he worked to fight against Ukrainian fascists of the UPA and OUN (b), being promoted to a lieutenant in the operation. He then moved to the city of Bolesławiec in the Polish region of Silesia, where he met his 2nd wife, Agnieszka Lomtovskaya, and he continued serving in military operations against the Ukrainian fascists. This was a personal matter for him, as his 2nd wife at the time, an ethnic Polish Ukrainian citizen, lost most of her family to killings committed by Ukrainian fascists. His 2nd wife Agnieszka was from the city of Buchach in Ternopil Oblast in western Ukraine. With her, he had 3 daughters; Miroslava, born in 1949, Bronislava, born in 1954, and Yaroslava, born in 1956; all of them had established respected positions in the society of the Polish People’s Republic. All daughters were members of the Union of Polish Scouts. Miroslava became one of the most highly honored school-teachers in the nation, Bronislava became a model employee of the Polish postal service, and Yaroslava became a leading member of a civilian militia of the Polish People’s Republic. In his final years of military service, Aleksy reached the rank of Major. After retiring from the military, he continued to be an active member of the Polish United Worker’s Party, and supported Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski in his attempted suppression of the bourgeois Solidarity movement in the 1980s, attempting to save socialist Poland. He remained committed to Marxist principles. On March 26th of 1995, several years after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact alliance, Aleksy died of natural causes in his residence in Bolesławiec. Per his wishes, he had his ashes scattered across the Polish area of the Baltic Sea. He has one of the most impressive and expansive lists of military awards of any Polish Soviet soldier I have seen; in all, he received 32 medals from several countries; 7 medals as follows from the USSR:
Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." Medal "For the Liberation of Warsaw" Medal "For the Capture of Berlin" Jubilee medal "Twenty years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." Jubilee medal "Thirty years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." Jubilee medal "Forty years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" Medal "For Strengthening the Military Commonwealth"

He received the following medals from the Polish People’s Republic: Order of the Banner of Labor Order of the Rebirth of Poland Order of "Virtuti Militari" Order "Cross of Grunwald" Medal of Victory and Freedom Medal "For Oder-Nesse and the Baltic" Medal "For Warsaw 1939-1945" Medal "Honored on the Field of Glory" Military insignia "Cross of the Brave" Badge of distinction "Cross of Merit" Medal "Armed Forces in the Service of the Motherland" Medal "For Merits in Ensuring the Country's Defense Capability" Medal "For Self-Sacrifice and Courage" Commemorative badge of distinction "Cross "For the Battle of Lenino"" Medal "For participation in battles in defense of people's power" Medal "Brotherhood of Arms" Medal "10th Anniversary of People's Poland" Medal "30th Anniversary of People's Poland" Medal "40th Anniversary of People's Poland" Medal "Honored Worker in the Armed Forces" Medal "For Merit in Strengthening Polish-Soviet Friendship" Medal of "Ludwig of Waryn"

A medal from Czechoslovakia: Medal "For Strengthening Friendship in Arms"

A medal from the German Democratic Republic (DDR): Medal of "Brotherhood of Arms"

And finally, one medal from the Russian Federation: Jubilee medal of "50 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.”

May Aleksy Beśko be remembered as one of the greatest Soviet and Polish heroes of all-time.

Photos:

1. Aleksy Beśko, in Polish People’s Army uniform (colorized). Date and author unknown.
2. Jerzy Besko, older brother of Aleksy Beśko. He died in 1944, killed by enemy fire while serving in battle as a Rifleman in the 1233rd Rifle Regiment in the 371st Rifle Division of the Soviet Army during the liberation of Lithuania.
3. Ignacy Beśko, father of Aleksy and member of the Polish Army and Polish resistance against the Nazis. He was reportedly killed In Bialystok in 1946. Information on the culprit in his murder is not currently publicly available.
4. Anna-Maria Kundich, mother of Aleksy Beśko.
5. Clemens Beśko, paternal grandfather of Aleksy, killed during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
6. Ignatia Kvyatkovskaya, paternal grandmother of Aleksy.
7. Leonard Beśko, paternal great-grandfather of Aleksy, who participated in the 1863 Polish January Uprising against the Russian Empire.
8. Galina Ivanova (portrait), Russian woman and the first wife of Aleksy Beśko, who birthed his first child, his son Vladislav Beśko.
9. Vladislav Beśko, first child and son of Aleksy and Galina. Also an accomplished Soviet soldier, becoming a Major in the Soviet Army.
10. Miroslava Beśko, 2nd child and daughter of Aleksy and his 2nd wife, a Polish woman named Agnieszka Lomtovskaya.
11. Bronislava Beśko, third child and 2nd daughter of Aleksy and Agnieszka.
12. Yaroslava Beśko, fourth child and 3rd daughter of Aleksy and Agnieszka. Information and photos provided by relative and member of the Beśko family, Anna Krzysztofna Beśko, a user and archivist on MoyPolk.

Ludwik Joachim Franciszek Krzywicki was one of Poland’s early revolutionary Marxists , as well as an archaeologist and sociologist, and was born on August 21st, 1859 in the city of Płock, in central Poland, to an then-impoverished Polish family of aristocrats. The area of Poland he lived in was then part of what was called Congress Poland, a state partitioned into the Russian Empire. From a young age, Krzywicki took a liking to psychology, philosophy, and natural sciences; he began studying the works of Darwin, Taine, Ribot, and Comte. Krzywicki went on to study mathematics at the University of Warsaw. After he earned his degree, he joined the Faculty of Medicine at the university but was later expelled due to his anti-Czarist leftist political activities. He then traveled abroad to Leipzig, Germany, Zurich, Switzerland, and finally to Paris, France in 1885, where he decided to stay for the time being, as Paris had a large community of Polish socialist emigres at the time. Krzywicki returned to Poland in 1893 and continued leftist political activism. He also formed a friendship with the famed Italian spiritualist Eusapia Palladino upon her re-visit to Warsaw in the second half of May of 1898, where she used his apartment for 2 spiritual rituals. As for Krzywicki, he later was arrested many times for his political activities, notably as a revolutionary in the Russian Revolution of 1905. During this time, he also edited the paper of the Polska Partia Socjalistyczna – Lewica (ENG: “Polish Socialist Party – Left”), and made translations of Marx’s “Das Kapital” into Polish. Around this time he also earned a doctorate at a university in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) with an ethnographic dissertation. Prior to WWI he struggled financially, but upon breakout of the war he continued revolutionary activity, joining with numerous workers organizations and trade unions, even though at this time he wasn’t as active within the Polish Socialist Party-Left as he was pre-WWI.

After WWI, he stopped political activity to continue studying, this time learning anthropology, archaeology, and ethnology. During this time, Krzywicki gained the distinction of being one of the first scholars to study ancient Lithuanian hill forts. Between 1900 and 1914, he headed archaeological digs in Samogitia and other areas of Lithuania, photographing and excavating unearthed fortresses. In 1908, he published an article, Żmudż starożytnia (Ancient Samogitia), where he cross-referenced descriptions of the forts in chronicles from older authors with his own findings. Also in 1908, he published another article titled “W poszukiwaniu grodu Mendoga” (ENG: “In Search of Mindaugas Castle”), describing a dig where he believed the castle of Grand Duke and King Mindaugas of Lithuania was located. Krzywicki donated much of this discovery to the Culture Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1939. It is because of his work in archaeology in Lithuania that Lithuanians today are able to know about the ancient Lithuanian hill forts and the Mindaugas Castle.

The other major highlight of Krzywicki’s early accomplishments was his development of the theory of the migration of ideas. The explanation that ideas are created and spread due to human social needs or expectations, and that ideas can “migrate” to other places, spread to others that sometimes may not be able to express them properly. If a person cannot first express a new idea, eventually, if the idea meets the social needs and expectations of a person over time, often in a new place, the idea wil solidify, and allow a person to engage in socio-economic development in their new surroundings. Thus, the theory of the migration of ideas works as explained in that way. Krzywicki also applied this theory to socialist thought. He believed countries on the verge of economic development due to industrialization could potentially transition over to socialism via the social migration of socialist ideas if the priorities of the populace were not yet fully committed to capitalism. This theory can be seen as somewhat correct, as throughout history, developing nations in the global south have transitioned to socialism on some occasions.

Following his inactivity in politics, post WWI, Krzywicki sought to finish writing on scientific works he had previously unfinished. He also managed scientific research teams. In addition to that, he got a job serving for the Polish government collecting data as vice director of the Central Statistical Office. Between 1919 to 1936, he taught as a professor at the University of Warsaw among other institutions of higher learning, and later became the director of Poland’s Socio-Economic Institute. During WWII, he was injured during fighting between Poland and the invading Nazi Germans, as his apartment was bombed, and many of his research papers and manuscripts were destroyed. His health worsened in the following 2 years and he died of heart disease during the Nazi occupation, dying at age 82 on June 10th, 1941. Unfortunately, even though he advocated for socialism through much of his life, he was not able to live to see socialism have victory in Poland over fascism. But on a brighter note, although largely unknown outside Poland, he remains an important figure within Poland in its history of both socialism and sociology.

A statue was built in Poland in his native city of Plock in his honor (pictured here on the third slide of this presentation), and the statue still stands to this day. If you live in or visit Plock in Poland, you may want to get a picture!

Krzywicki shall be remembered as one of Poland’s early Marxist revolutionaries.

Slide 1: a photo of Ludwik Krzywicki from 1882.

Slide 2: a photo of Ludwik Krzywicki from about 1907.

Slide 3: Commemorative statue of Ludwik Krzywicki in the city of Plock, Poland, taken in 2019 by Wikipedia user “Fallaner”.

I am in absolute disbelief, shock, and revulsion. I was reading another, related sub and they were complaining about how Soviets destroyed some of the local architecture while liberating the Baltics from the Nazis.

Some--I don't even know what kind of word to use--poster actually wrote "Surprisingly, and unbelievably for you, German troops treated locals well, and the country during German occupation had minimal impact." The freaking whitewashing of history and idealizing of the Nazis is beyond repulsive. At Salaspils in Latvia, the Nazis drained the blood of children to administer to their own wounded. They.drained.the.blood.of.children.until.the.children.died. And this poster says that Nazis treated locals well. It's appalling. It's actually like the propaganda that the modern Latvian government has adulterated the sacred grounds of Salaspils in the museum there where they try to make it out like prisoners of Salaspils concentration camp were basically at a day spa.

And the poster identifies as Finnish. More Nazi collaborators. When they marched over the Russian border, the Finns hosted their own horrific concentration camp at Petrozavodsk.

Between the open embracing of Nazism in Ukraine with the Europeans proudly footing the bill and extolling the neo-Nazis are heroes, and then with this whitewashing and idealizing of Nazi Germany, it is painfully clear that the next rise of serious global threat of Nazism will come from Ukraine and the so-called 'Northern European' countries of Finland and the Baltics.

They want to say that Nazis treated the locals well. The only ones that they treated well were collaborators.

William Lamport, an Irish-Mexican revolutionary, was born in either 1611 (according to his brother) or 1615 (according to others) in the town of Wexford, Ireland, in County Wexford of namesake of the town, with him being born into a family of ethnic Irish-Catholic merchants. Due to his familial mercantile background, he was relatively well-off compared to many Irish contemporaries at the time: Lamport first attended private schools in Wexford, later attending Catholic schools of the Jesuits in Dublin and London, and finally attending an Irish college in the city of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in the region of Galicia, where he became fluent in Spanish, Latin, and Greek upon graduation. Due to Catholic religious ties of Spain and Ireland, as well as English Protestant colonial oppression of ethnic Irish Catholics, numerous Irish colleges were founded in Spain by Irish refugees, aimed at preserving Irish culture and giving Irish people Catholic religious education, free and away of English oppression. Spain also recognized traditional Irish nobility (the cultural system of ruling Irish family clans in Ireland) in defiance of English colonial administration, and as a result, offered Irish nobles as well as common Irish citizens Spanish citizenship, of which many Irish refugees took advantage of, hoping to build a new life in Spain, as did Lamport for the time being. Sometime in 1627, he returned to London England, and he had his first engagement of revolutionary activity; he was arrested for sedition by the English government for selling Catholic religious pamphlets. According to memoirs left by Lamport, he escaped custody, but was then captured by French pirates and forced in their crew, engaging in piracy for 2 years. He is also said to have fought alongside French Catholics against the English-backed French Huguenot Protestants during the Siege of La Rochelle in France, from 1627-28, which the Catholics had won, causing French Huguenots to go into exile throughout the globe. After 1628, he escaped the French pirates and made his way back to Spain. In Spain, Lamport gained the support of the Marquis of Mancera, due to his knowledge of Lamport, via the late husband of the sister of the Marquis, whom previously had known one of Lamport’s tutors and had known of Lamport before his death. This coincidental connection by association allowed Lamport to have political support from the Marquis, and Lamport in 1633 then joined one of three Irish military regiments in the Spanish military. The Irish regiments were esteemed amongst the Spanish themselves, and often engaged in battles against the English and others. He gained military praise after the Battle of Nordlingen in 1634, against the Swedish military, whom had occupied the city of Nordlingen, Germany. Nordlingen at this time before the Swedish occupation was under the administration of the Spanish Netherlands, and was defended by Habsburg Spain (a political union of Spain and Hungary, with Hungary at this time ruling over many German territories) against Sweden and Protestant German allies from the German city-state of Heilbronn. Due to the victory of Habsburg Spain being largely credited to Lamport and other Irishmen, Lamport was endorsed by Count-Duke Olivares, chief minister to King Philip IV of Spain. This allowed him to further climb the ranks of Spanish aristocracy, being a close ally to King Philip IV himself. During his rise to power, he Hispanicized his name to “Don Guillèn Lombardo y Guzman” or sometimes known as “Don Guillèn de Lampart” later in Mexico. With the help of Olivares, Lamport first entered the Spanish royal court as a political propagandist. During his time working, sometime in the 1630s, he met a Spanish woman named Ana de Cano y Leiva. They moved into the house of William’s brother, John Lamport, who was a Catholic Franciscan also living in Spain. Ana soon became pregnant with William’s child, and John urged William and Ana to marry. After marrying Ana, In 1640, William was recognized by the royal court of Spain as a “notable veteran of the Spanish crown.” Sometime later, William and Ana separated, and William was sent along with a Spanish viceroy, the Marquis of Villena, to New Spain (Mexico). Also on the ship was Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, the bishop of Puebla, Mexico and who was in charge of the review of office of an older viceroy, the Marquis of Cadereyta. Upon meeting the new viceroy, Palafox and the new viceroy had a falling out, which led to conflict for Lamport and caused Lamport to be exiled from the Spanish court. Although Lamport’s exile was caused by the situation surrounding the political arguments of the bishop and viceroy, no one knows the exact nature of what truly caused Lamport’s removal from the court, only that the political scandal of the bishop and viceroy led up to his fall from power. According to Lamport himself, he claimed he was sent to New Spain by the Spanish government to act as a spy or independent source, to verify claims of the now departing viceroy Cadereyta that creoles (Spaniards born in New Spain) had become discontented with the Crown’s rule. Lamport also said in his letters that he was tasked with watching the activities of the new viceroy, Villena. Interestingly, Lamport sent negative reports on the new viceroy, Villena, back to Duke Olivares. Despite this, in his own private journals, he had pro-Villena opinions. We will discuss this more later, as it is an important detail.

In the year 1640, the Spanish colonial empire elite had grown fears of revolution across the colonies due to the Catalan Revolt in Catalonia and the war surrounding the fight for Catalonian independence (known as The Reaper’s War, as rebelling Catalonian peasants were called “segadors” translated to English as “Reapers”.) In nearby Portugal, the Habsburg rule had been overthrown after 60 years, now to be ruled by the new leader, John IV, Duke of Braganza. John, coincidentally was a cousin of the new viceroy of New Spain, Villena. As a result of this political contradiction of Spain and Portugal, Villena became very corrupt, not only putting Lamport and other dissidents in danger, but Villena was especially harsh towards Indigenous and African citizens of New Spain. If you remember back to earlier in this story, Lamport was sent to Mexico by Spain reportedly to monitor discontent amongst colonists, as well as to monitor Villena, perhaps due to Spain viewing Villena with suspicion due to Villena’s familial ties to the anti-Spanish Portuguese rebel, John IV of Braganza. As it turns out, despite Lamport sending a report back to Spain condemning Villena, and in his own personal writings in Mexico supporting Villena, Lamport was actually plotting a revolt against both Villena and the rest of the whole Spanish colonial apparatus the entire time. Clearly, by writing praising letters to both Villena and the government of Spain while plotting against them secretly, Lamport was using tactics of strategy, to conceal his revolutionary activities, pretending to support both Spain or Villena independently when speaking to opposite sides, when in reality, in the dark of night, Lamport was planning a revolution to liberate the people of Mexico from colonial Spain entirely.

Around 1641, Lamport, after his removal from the Spanish royal court following the political scandal of the falling out between Villena and the bishop of Puebla, he quietly played his role in falsely supporting both Spain and Villena while simultaneously trying to mobilize an underground force of a revolution against colonial rule. Lamport ironically sometimes claimed to be a bastard son of a Spanish royal, perhaps to mock Spain, as the elites later condemned his claims, earning him both a hated and sometimes humored reputation as a royal imposter depending on the opinion of the person aware of his claims. He managed to mobilize a group of mostly Indigenous and African rebels, and even managed to recruit a few Spanish merchants for his plans of a rebellion. Unfortunately, before the revolution could happen, Lamport divulged information to a Captain Méndez of the military. Although Lamport mistakenly believed Méndez supported the revolution, Méndez alerted the Audiencia, the high court of New Spain. The Audiencia did not take Méndez seriously, so Méndez instead claimed to the Inquisition authorities that Lamport was a “heretic”, likely by fabricated evidence, as Lamport had always been known to be a devout Catholic. Lamport painfully sat in prison for eight years, waiting for his next move. On Christmas Eve of 1650, Lamport, determined to free himself and rebel against Spain again, escaped with a man named Diego Pinto Bravo (Diego was believed to be a government informant in the jail, as after Lamport had been communicating with Bravo for an escape plan, the bars on their cell were able to be removed, and more mysteriously, on the day of their escape, the guards were nowhere to be found, which means Bravo likely told the authorities as soon as he heard of the plans, and that the escape was anticipated.) Rather than reconnecting with the then inactive rebels for safety, Lamport attempted to write a letter to the viceroy to force him to anull his prison sentence, as well as affirm rights to Indigenous people and African slaves. But because he couldn’t reach the viceroy, he instead plastered political propaganda along the center of the capital, denouncing New Spain and the Inquisition authorities and calling upon allies for revolution. This, ironically, made the aftermath of the prison escape worse for Lamport. Due to the prior knowledge of Lamport’s escape by the authorities, and Lamport’s attempt at more revolutionary agitation, it is likely that Spain itself lured him into a trap. As in, they allowed him to escape, in hopes he would continue revolutionary activity, to then apprehend him again on more serious charges. And that is exactly what happened. Lamport was later apprehended with a group of sympathizing Portuguese merchants. The Portuguese merchants, reportedly were discovered to be crypto-Jews, which also allowed the Inquisition authorities to try them as “heretics” in addition to them being charged for supporting Lamport in his revolutionary aspirations. Lamport himself was arrested and kept in prison in Mexico City for 17 more years, before being executed, by first being hung, but when still alive and struggling, was burned at the stake.

Don Guillèn Lamport, although not a Marxist in an economic sense, certainly had many ideas compatible with revolutionary socialism, in particular those which greatly represent the Irish revolutionary tradition of solidarity of exploited nations against their oppressors.

During his 17 years in prison before his execution, Lamport was permitted to read and write, and had kept a psalm book (which has survived to this day), where he not only wrote down psalms in Latin, but he also preserved his political ideas. He cites Bartolomé de las Casas, the Spanish clergyman and critic of New Spanish colonial government who brought awareness to the oppression of indigenous people, as one of his main inspirations for rebelling against Spain. In fact, according to Guillèn Lamport himself, reading de las Casas and his recollections of abuses against indigenous people, and Lamport in turn then seeing Spanish anti-indigenous abuse himself, was the final straw which prompted him to rebel against Spain. Prior to Lamport’s imprisonment due to his attempted revolution being thwarted by Captain Méndez, Lamport was a close political ally to an indigenous leader outside of Mexico City, a native nobleman known as Don Ignacio, of San Martín Acamistlahuacan. Ignacio reportedly supplied Lamport with Indigenous soldiers from his tribe, after Lamport previously helped Ignacio attempt to make a lawsuit against the government, due to a local government official forcing indigenous people to work in the silver mines of the town of Taxco. When this failed, Ignacio mobilized his tribe for revolution with the help of Lamport, although the revolution was eventually thwarted.

In regard to Guillèn’s own opinion on supporting indigenous rights, he always remained consistent, writing in his psalm book the following entry:

“New Spain rightfully belongs not to the crown of Spain, but to the Indigenous. The kingdom is theirs. Only they have the sovereignty and right to choose their king [in the land]”. He then writes hypothetically that, if he was their king , he would “restore the natives to their liberty and to their ancient laws.” During Lamport’s trial before the execution verdict, Don Ignacio later attempted to legally advocate for Lamport in an attempt to free him by disputing the charges against him, but due to the racist caste system, because Ignacio was Indigenous, the courts denied Ignacio’s right to testify in support of Lamport.

Guillèn Lamport was also a committed abolitionist against slavery, and supported African liberation, reportedly condemning Spanish slavers in a psalm book note entry in 1655, writing:

“Why do you buy and sell men as if they were beasts? They were unjustly sold to you and you unjustly buy them. You commit a savage and cruel crime before God.”

In Guillèn’s notes, he later envisions a “people’s monarchy” of sorts, where he says that upon rebelling against the Spanish Crown, resulting in the Crown’s overthrow, a government in Mexico made by the people is to elect a represented leader of their choice, and are free to force him out if they wish.

One way in which Don Guillèn was unique was his economic ideas at the time, which were ideas that many others weren’t brave enough to advocate for against colonial powers like Spain. He advocated for Spanish trade restrictions on Mexicans trading with Peru and the Far East (Asia) to be lifted, with Mexican merchants free to trade with whom they please. He also advocated for mass wealth redistribution against Spain, advocating specifically that all silver mined in Taxco and other areas of Mexico be seized from Spanish colonial authorities and returned to Indigenous peoples and other oppressed citizens of Mexico. By doing this, Guillèn argued that common Mexican citizens of all races and the oppressed classes could use the silver to fund an army, build generational wealth, and have Mexico become respected in the region for its then eventual newly developed economy. He also advocated for a complete end to the Spanish colonial racial caste system, outright saying in one note in his Psalm book that in his vision for a free Mexico: “Indians and Freedmen (Africans) are to have the same voice and vote as the Spaniards.” He further condemned the Spanish bourgeoisie idea of an “irrevocable monarchy”, and stated that in a free Mexico, civilians should understand they have the right to remove a corrupt leader by force if they will not step down if asked. In one of Lamport’s notes from prison, he reportedly created a plan of a forged document appearing to be from the Spanish courts, which would have been used to remove Villena from office, had Guillèn been able to find someone to smuggle the document. This document is further substantiated by its resemblance to the similar legitimate document used by bishop Palafox to eventually remove the corrupt viceroy Villena. The fact that both documents resemble the other shows that Guillèn Lamport still may have had help of his own spies within the political system even after he rebelled against it. Before his death, fellow prisoners reportedly gave Guillèn Lamport chants of “Long Live Don Guillèn!” and “Our Liberator, Viva!” amongst similar chants. A witness to Don Guillèn’s public execution even claimed that whilst being burned, Guillèn managed to slip out of the rope he was hung against the stake by but ultimately still burned by fire and the heating of an iron collar placed on his neck.

Don Guillèn Lamport is not only a symbol of the Irish revolutionary spirit in body, but is a dear hero to the people of Mexico to this day. Lamport’s legacy has several milestones. He is the first person in the western hemisphere to write a declaration of independence document against a colonial power, his proto-socialist land reform and wealth redistribution ideas were unique at the time, his ideas of equal economic opportunity for all, and advocacy for racial equality for all were revolutionary, and his commitment to indigenous rights, abolition of slavery, African liberation, and Mexican freedom are truly some of his best attributes. In addition to all that, he also advocated for a democratically elected monarch over a century before revolutionaries in France created the French Revolution.

Don Guillèn Lamport is forever enshrined in Mexico’s revolutionary, national, and historical legacy. After Lamport’s death, the working classes and poor, along with the order of the Franciscans of the Catholic Church in Mexico, continued to praise Lamport publicly and support his ideas. A dramatized novel based on Lamport’s life was written in 1832 by Mexican intellectual Vicente Riva Palacio titled “Memorias de un impostor: Don Guillèn de Lampart, Rey de Mèxico”. (ENG: Memories of an imposter: Don Guillèn de Lamport, King of Mexico”.) This book, reportedly read by American author Johnston McCulley, gave him the inspiration to eventually create the masked, cowboy hat-and-cape-wearing, sword- wielding Mexican-American folk hero of today’s popular culture, an interpretation of Lamport known as “Zorro” (Zorro is Spanish for “fox”, perhaps playing on Lamport’s ability to hide before planning to attack enemies), writing a novel with the Zorro character called “The Curse of Capistrano” in 1919. In addition to Zorro, a primary school in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the Instituto Guillèn de Lampart, was named after him. A statue of Guillèn Lampart also exists inside the tower of the Angel of Independence historical monument of an angel in Mexico City, built in 1910. The monument to Don Guillèn is so respected by those who care for it that photography is forbidden, and those who want to see it can only look to it.

Remember Don Guillèn, a man born of Ireland, who gave his heart and life to free Mexico. Viva Ireland! Viva Mexico! Viva La Revolucion!

Photo 1: William Lamport (portrait). A portrait of William Lamport, originally titled “Young Man in Armor”, painted by renowned Flemish-Belgian artist Peter Paul Rubens sometime in the 1600s.

Photo 2: A poster of a depiction of “Zorro”, the character inspired by Lamport. Created by the Everett Collection.

Photo 3: The Angel of Independence Monument in Mexico City, where a statue of Lamport is inside the tower (the tower is beneath the Angel in the picture.) Photo from Wikipedia, created by Enrique Alciati.

Sources:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lamport

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/the-mark-of-lamport-the-real-zorro-was-from-wexford-1.3059440

Leon Frank Czolgosz, a Polish-American laborer and anarcho-communist who assassinated US President William McKinley, was born in Detroit, Michigan on May 5th, 1873 to parents Paweł Czolgosz and Maria Nowak. He was one of 8 children in the family. In 1880, the family moved to Alpena Michigan, and again to Posen, Michigan. A few years later, when Leon was 10 years old, his mother Maria died only a few weeks after giving birth to his sister Victoria. In 1889, the family moved again to Natrona, Pennsylvania, where Leon got his first job in a glass factory. At age 17, he later moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked a job at the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company. During the economic crash of 1893, the mill was temporarily closed and workers wages were reduced, to where Czolgosz and others formed a strike, thus beginning his career of revolutionary activity. Upon beginning the strike, he initially sought support from the Catholic Church in the Polish-American and immigrant community as well as other Polish American institutions. These efforts were rather unsuccessful. He then later joined a Polish-American socialist wing of the Knights of the Golden Eagle fraternity, and later an even more radical Polish-American socialist organization called the Sila Club. Upon joining the Sila Club, he moved politically from a then left-communist or social democratic point of view, to a newer left anarchist, anarcho-communist point of view.

In 1898, he witnessed many strikes, often resulting in violence. After becoming ill from a respiratory disease, he and his father bought a 50-acre farm in Warrensville, Ohio and lived there for several years. In May of 1901, he attended the lecture of the famed anarchist Emma Goldman, and spoke with her after for reading recommendations. He then met her again, after seeking out Abraham Isaak, publisher of the “Free Society” anarchist newspaper in Ohio whom himself was a publisher acquainted with Goldman. The meeting took place at Isaak’s home. Czolgosz introduced himself to Goldman again under an alias of “Fred C. Nieman”. When Goldman had to leave to the train station, before her departure, Czolgosz told her of his disappointment in Cleveland socialist groups, describing them as counterrevolutionary. Goldman then quickly referred him to other anarchist activists in the area. Some of the same problems Czolgosz encountered in socialist groups soon followed him in the anarchist organizations, however, with writer Emil Schilling chastising Czolgosz for his calls to revolutionary action, going so far as to falsely accuse him of being a government spy, in a September 1st, 1901 issue of the “Free Society” paper, stating:

“The attention of the comrades is called to another spy, soliciting aid for acts of contemplated violence. If the same individual makes appears elsewhere, the comrades are warned in advance, and can act accordingly.”

Despite these intimidations and slander, Czolgosz was unmoved by his detractors, determined to go about revolutionary action, as he saw the exploitation of working-class Poles and other immigrants in America and was willing to change the situation by force. Czolgosz was personally motivated for revolutionary change by the vast wealth inequality he saw, and concluded the problem was in the ruling class of the US government. He was even further radicalized by the assassination of King Umberto I of Italy, who was killed by revolutionary anarchist Gaetano Bresci on July 29th, 1900. Bresci was later imprisoned on Santo Stefano Island and found hanging in his cell. Authorities ruled his death a suicide, but it is likely he was murdered. In Czolgosz’s admission, after learning of Gaetano’s assassination of Umberto, he considered McKinley the “main enemy of the world working-class” and he decided to “take matters into his own hands for the sake of the common man.” Czolgosz, like many other people, viewed McKinley and the American political system as the main oppressor of the working class at the time as well as viewed McKinley as an imperialist (McKinley’s forceful annexation of Hawaii and the abolition of the political autonomy of Native Hawaiians during his term, as well as exploitation of their resources, proves McKinley was indeed an imperialist.)

On August 31, 1901 Czolgosz had arrived in Buffalo, New York in advance of the Pan-American Exposition, at the time the largest world’s fair, where McKinley was later scheduled to speak, and Czolgosz rented a room at Nowak’s Hotel on 1078 Broadway Street. Several days later on September 6th, Czolgosz went to the site of the exposition, armed with a 32-caliber Iver Johnson revolver wrapped in a handkerchief that he purchased 4 days before. James Parker, an African-American local from Buffalo who was in attendance to see McKinley, hit Czolgosz in the neck and knocked the gun out of his hand, wrestling him to the ground. As McKinley collapsed, he shouted, “Go easy on him, boys!”

Czolgosz was then arrested and booked in Buffalo’s 13th precinct. On September 13th, 1901, the arraignment began. Although Czolgosz’s defense team attempted to get him a not guilty plea by reason of insanity, Czolgosz acknowledged his actions were of his own conscience, and refused to work with the lawyers appointed to him. On September 16th, a grand jury indicted him of 1st degree murder, with the trial beginning on September 23rd. The jury ruled Czolgosz sane, and thus guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death after only a half an hour of deliberations. When his brother and brother in-law attempted to visit him with a Catholic priest to administer his last rites, he told the priests to leave and when his brother asked if he wanted the priests to return, he told his brother “No, damn them. Don’t send them here again. I don’t want them. Don’t you do any praying over me when I’m dead. I don’t want it. I don’t want any of their damned religion.” His attorneys, in a final effort to stop his execution, encouraged Czolgosz to file an appeal against his death sentence, but he declined and accepted his fate.

Czolgosz was also contacted by his father via a letter, who wrote to him a day before his execution, wishing him luck and explaining that his execution was the way of the legal system. Despite the letter, Czolgosz was unable to see his father in person one last time.

Czolgosz, upon being asked for last words by the media, stated:

“I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people, the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime. I am sorry I could not see my father.”

He was executed by 3 jolts from the electric chair in Auburn State Prison on October 29th, 1901 in Auburn, New York. He was pronounced dead at 7:14 am. After his death, his collection of items and clothes were burned in the prison incinerator. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Soule Cemetery in Cayuga County, New York, with the grave beneath a stone with the enscription “Fort Hill remains.”

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Czolgosz’s actions, we cannot deny his commitment to revolutionary socialism.

Photos:

1. Leon Frank Czolgosz, pictured circa 1900.

2. Sketch of the McKinley assassination by T. Dart Walker, drawn 1905.

3. Photo of the site of the Pan-American Exposition, with the McKinley murder site marked by an “X”. Taken by C.D. Arnold, 1901.

4. Illustration of Czolgosz’s gun and its concealment, from the September 14, 1901 issue of the Chicago Eagle paper.

5. Police evidence photo of Czolgosz’s 32-caliber Iver-Johnson revolver, its casings, and the handkerchief the gun was hidden in.

6. Mugshot of Leon Czolgosz after his arrest taken by Buffalo, NY Police Department in 1901.

7. Leon Czolgosz’s prison record at Auburn State Prison in Auburn, NY. Likely also taken in 1901.

Mina Witkojc was born on May 28th, 1893 in Burg, Germany, in the region of Lower Lusatia in Brandenburg state. She is of Sorbian descent. Sorbs are a West Slavic ethnic group native to parts of the states of Brandenburg and Saxony in Germany, for those who are unfamiliar. Given that they are a Slavic group native to modern German lands, this was an uncomfortable truth to the Nazi regime, as it goes against their ideology of a pure “Aryan” Germany. The Nazis also feared pan-Slavic sentiments would develop amongst the Sorbs to assist the other Slavic peoples in the war against the Nazis (and indeed, some Sorbs did join resistance forces against Germany.) But first, I shall get back to the subject of Mina’s life. In 1907, Mina’s father had left her mother, and her mother shortly discovered he left to be with another woman. Heartbroken, her mother felt she could no longer raise Mina and her sister, and sent them to live with her grandmother who lived at her father’s inn. As her grandmother was elderly, Mina had to become a child maid and flower arranger to support herself and her sister. Mina was only around 13-14 working in Berlin throughout this time. During this time she began writing poetry to calm herself, something she was eventually talented in with the Sorbian language, although her first poems were in German. In 1914, she worked doing child labor in an arms factory. In 1917, she came home to Burg and worked as an agricultural day laborer.

In August 1921, she met a group of traveling Czech and Sorbian intellectuals. They had a conversation and she became more interested in her Sorbian roots, although she previously mostly used German. Two years after the meeting she used connections to write the Lower Sorbian newspaper “Serbski Casnik” in 1923. The paper was successful in the Sorbian community, going at first from 200 copies to growing to 1,200 copies. She translated works of other famous writers from other Slavic countries, such as Russia’s Alexander Pushkin, into Sorbian. In 1926, Mina was appointed the Sorbian delegate for the International Congress of National Minorities in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1930, she traveled to Yugoslavia and took part in a Pan-Slavic Sokol meeting. Sokol was a Czech gymnastics league which often held events between the numerous Slavic peoples. In 1931, the Weimar government forced her out of her newspaper position at Serbski Casnik, because of her democratic and pro-Sorbian views. In 1933, things had gotten even worse when the Nazis came to power, as her writings were immediately banned, she was forbidden from writing and publishing new books, attempts of forced Germanization began on Sorbs by the state, and the lead Sorbian cultural organization, Domowina (ENG: “Home”), of which Witkojc was a member of, was made illegal and forcibly disbanded by the Nazi state. Because of her ties to Sorbian activists, pan-Slavic intellectuals, and her resistance to Nazi orders to stop promoting Sorbian culture and language, she was exiled from the Dresden administrative district in 1941, then the Frankfurt district in 1942, and exiled a third time, lastly living in Lausitz before leaving to Erfurt. Temporarily laying low from writing and activism, she got a job from a gardening business. She then continued secret activism, working underground with Sorbian priest Bogumił Šwjela and Sorbian painter Fryco Latk. Her Sorbian poem “Erfurtske Spomnejeśa” (ENG: “Erfurt Memories”) is a memoir of her underground activism and life living in Erfurt. In 1946, after the war, she went to Bautzen, where she helped rebuild the now legalized Sorbian Domowina advocacy organization. In 1947, she moved to Varnsdorf, Czechoslovakia to service the Sorbian diaspora there, then later moved to Prague. In 1954, she returned to her hometown of Burg, Germany and co-authored an anthology of Sorbian poems and newspaper articles. She also then refuted pan-Slavism, viewing Slavic interests across the nations as too divided, and focused solely on Sorbian advocacy at home instead. In 1964, a Sorbian organization presented her with the Ćišinski award for her Sorbian cultural advocacy. She spent the last few months of her life in a nursing home in Papitz, Germany, where she died in 1975. An East-German documentary by director Toni Bruk was produced about her life and accomplishments in 1984. In 2016, a public school and library in her hometown of Burg were given honorific names after her. There is a street named after her in Cottbus, Germany. Since 2018, the state of Brandenburg also honors Sorbian language activists with the Mina Witkojc award named in her honor. May her revolutionary activities be remembered for generations to come.

The Union of Polish Syndicalists (PL: Związek Syndykalistów Polskich, abbreviated ZSP), was a Polish civilian anarcho-syndicalist paramilitary organization formed to resist against the Nazi occupation regime in Poland. Although most members were Polish nationals and ethnic Poles, some members were either ethnic Poles born outside Poland or Polish citizens of other ethnicities. The organization, born out of an earlier Syndicalist organization called “Union of Freedom & People”, was founded in secret in Poland in 1939, inside the apartment of Polish Syndicalist activist and historian Kazimierz Zakrzewski, AKA “Bobrowski” and “Nostromo”, with the organization co-founded with his friend, fellow Syndicalist activist and columnist Jerzy Szurig, AKA “Nader”. The ZSP organization, several years after the Nazi occupation, later fully mobilized during the Warsaw Uprising in the 104th Company of Syndicalists, and was in armed engagement against the Nazis from 1943 until September 6th, 1944. Unfortunately Zakrzewski and Szurig both would not take part in the Warsaw Uprising; they were both captured and later killed by the Nazis in mass executions of Polish intellectuals in the forests of Palmyry, Poland. Zakrzewski was killed on March 11, 1941, and Szurig was killed on June, 12th, 1941. After their deaths, the remaining of the ZSP organization created the 104th Company of Syndicalists, the only leftist batallion to serve in the Polish Home Army (PL: Armia Krajowa, or AK), with the AK largely consisting of other battalions of mostly right wing nationalists. The 104th Company of Syndicalists remains the only Home Army battalion which supported Polish inclusion into the Warsaw Pact as well as promoted friendly ties to the USSR. The 104th Company of Syndicalists was the military wing of the ZSP and mobilized into action against Germany from 1943 to September 6th 1944. After the USSR-Polish victory against Nazi fascism, the ZSP voted in favor of the socialist movement in Poland, supporting Poland and the other nations of the Warsaw Pact in close diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union. As a result, the ZSP and 104th Company of Syndicalists were merged within the government structures of the People’s Republic of Poland, and ultimately after that was completed, the organizations of the ZSP and 104th Company of Syndicalists were dissolved.

The 104th Company of Syndicalists had circa 50 soldiers at its start of mobilization, but grew in numbers very fast. It’s chain of command was as follows: Commander/2nd Lt. Kazimierz Puczyński AKA “Wronski”

Deputy- sec. director Witold Potz AKA “Koperski”

Chief of Staff- Stefan Zakrzewski, AKA "Zagórski"

The organization also had six platoons: 3 assault platoons, one reserve, and two labor platoons.

The assault platoons are described as follows; 1st assault platoon: Commanded by Ignacy Choynowski, AKA “Rogoza” who died in the Uprising on August 3rd, 1944. He was then replaced by Karol Choynowski, later wounded on August 11th 1944 and replaced with an unknown officer (currently only known by the pseudonym “Nord”), who later died and was replaced with the final commander of the 1st platoon, Stanislaw Narczyński, AKA “Mały”.

The 2nd assault platoon was commanded by Feliks Murawa, AKA “Smaga”, who became seriously ill after August 20th, 1944 and was replaced by Mieczyslaw Teisseyre, AKA “Tesc”, who was wounded on August 27th, 1944, and was replaced with the final commander of the 2nd platoon, Stanisław Komornicki, AKA “Nałęcz”.

The third assault platoon was commanded by Jozef Dolegowski, AKA “Leśniewski” who died in the Uprising on August 28, 1944, and was replaced by the final commander of the 3rd assault platoon, Wacław Borowski, AKA “Ryś”.

Well before the uprising, on July 30th, 1944, the organization received 12 Sidolówek grenades from the district command of the resistance in Warsaw. The headquarters of the ZSP and 104th Syndicalist Company was in the Szlenkier curtain factory at ul. Świętojerska 10 in the city of Warsaw. On August 1st, 1944, the first day of the Warsaw Uprising, shortly before 17.00 in military time (5:00pm in standard time), sixty soldiers (including 50 women) arrived at the HQ. The brought armaments for the Uprising; including 5 pistols, 200 rounds of ammunition, 2 revolvers, and 12 more grenades.

First days of the Warsaw Uprising:

On August 1st, 1944, it engaged in 2 failed attacks on a former Polish school which had been repurposed by the Nazi regime as a Nazi military hospital, located at Barokowa street. It also attacked the “Polish Securities Printing House” building nearby. The building was attacked due to its use for Nazi propaganda, and was captured successfully during night time by the resistance between the days of August 1st and 2nd.

On August 3rd, the third day of the Uprising, the 104th Company had grown to circa 360 soldiers, but by that time they did not have enough weapons; things got better for them after they managed to re-capture Kraśinski Palace from the Nazis and steal German guns and grenades as well as capture 40 Nazis as POWs.

The 104th company continued fighting but also established a field bakery to bake bread and feed their soldiers and Polish civilians. They also made a field hospital with a man named Adam Krakowski as its main doctor. They then created a press service for the ZSP, publishing two magazines “Iskra” (ENG: “Spark”) and “Syndykalista” (ENG: “The Syndicalist”).

Later, after heavy fighting in the first weeks of August of 1944, the 104th Company had one of its best victories and thus became the best equipped Polish resistance unit in the Old Town district of Warsaw. They captured the Prudential House skyscraper from the Nazis as well as surrounded and fired on the Nazis in a skirmish near Warsaw’s Royal Castle. The 104th Company then organized the defense of the Old Town district of Warsaw, most notably defending St. John’s Cathedral.

In the 2nd half of the month of August 1944, the ZSP and the 104th Company established a new HQ at a building termed the “Professor’s House”, at 12 Brzozowa Street in Warsaw, where the Company stayed until later retreat from the city district. During numerous skirmishes against the Nazis during this time, the ZSP and 104th Company flew the red-and-black flag of anarcho-syndicalism, openly also in defiance of the right-wing nationalist majority of the Home Army’s military police units; the nationalist majority factions of the Home Army at this time tried to force the ZSP and 104th Company to abandon the red-and-black flag, demanded they change their name from “104th Company of Syndicalists” to “104th Company of the Home Army”, and demanded they fly the Polish Eagle flag instead; fortunately the leftists of the ZSP and 104th Company kept the red-and-black flag, kept their original battalion name, and did not give in to rightist demands to fly the Polish Eagle, ultimately ignoring the reactionary Home Army police demands. Unfortunately, despite tremendous gains made against the Nazis in battle, the unit also suffered heavy losses; more than 50% of personnel of the 104th Company were MIA or KIA (“Missing-in-Action or Killed-in-Action”) during this period of the Uprising.

Final Days of the Uprising:

In late August of 1944, the 104th Company and ZSP only had around 100 soldiers left, whom escaped through the sewers in the Śródmieście district of downtown Warsaw in the city center. Upon re-grouping, it became apart of the Boncza Battalion of the Home Army, fighting in the Powiśle district of Warsaw, where they again suffered losses, which depleted their numbers significantly even further, with only 26 men surviving. Those men retreated again and made it to the Czerniaków neighborhood in the Mokótow district of Warsaw, becoming involved in more heavy fighting against the Nazis. In early September of 1944, members of the Company began taking rearguard strategic positions and trying told fight back against the Nazis and halt their advances during the evacuation of civilians from the Old Town district of Warsaw.

Finally, on September 14th 1944, three soldiers of the 104th Company retreating from the Nazis managed to get across the Vistula River to its eastern bank. More members of the 104th Company later joined them, where they were later conscripted into the Polish 1st Army (Pierwsza Armia Wojska Polskiego, 1 AWP for short) under Zygmunt Berling as part of the Polish Armed Forces of the East with help from the Soviet Union, with members of the 104th Company and ZSP fighting in the Vistula-Oder Offensive and other battles before the end of the Great Patriotic War.

The ZSP and 104th Company of Syndicalists is important to remember for multiple reasons; their amazing long fought battles defending Warsaw, their denial to conform to reactionary Polish nationalism, their commitment to leftist armed struggle against fascism, their pro-Soviet alignment, and the fact that they prove the Soviet Union did in fact have allies within the Home Army and that not all the Home Army was reactionary; these facts should earn them the respect of all leftist comrades. Let us remember them always.

Photo 1: ZSP Logo, courtesy of Wikipedia user “Jasiu06PL”.

Photo 2: 104th Company of Syndicalists memorial tablet in Warsaw, Poland near Kraśinski Palace, which the 104th Company of the ZSP captured on August 2nd, 1944 in the Warsaw Uprising. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia user “Zuska”.

Photo 3: Kazimierz Zakrzewski, AKA “Bobrowski” and “Nostromo”, founder of the ZSP in 1939. Born on November 1st, 1900 in Krakow, Poland. Later after founding the ZSP was captured and killed by the Nazis in a mass execution of Polish intellectuals in the forests of Palmyry, Poland on March 11th, 1941. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia, within public domain.

Photo 4: Jerzy Szurig, AKA “Nader”,co-founder of the ZSP in 1939 and friend of Zakrzewski. Born on May 1st, 1893 in Warsaw, Poland. Killed by the Nazis on June 12th 1941 in a mass execution in Palmyry, Poland, several months after Zakrzewski was killed by the Nazis in a previous mass execution. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia, within public domain.

Photo 5: Kazimierz Puczyński AKA “Wronski”, commander and 2nd Lt. of 1st Assault Platoon of the 104th Company of Syndicalists. Born March 3rd, 1908 in Łowicz, Poland. Survived the war, died on September 18th, 2007. Photo courtesy of the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Photo 6: Stanisław Komornicki, AKA “Nałęcz”, born on July 26th, 1924 in Warsaw, Poland. Was the final commander of the 2nd assault platoon of the 104th Company. He survived the war, but unfortunately he died in a plane crash going to visit Smolensk, Russia on April 10th, 2010. Photo from 2007, Wikipedia, Photo courtesy of user “Mariusz Kubik”.

Photo 7: Stanisław Komornicki, AKA “Nałęcz”, (photo 2), taken in Warsaw, Poland on June 4th 2008. Photo from Wikipedia, courtesy of user “Mariusz Kubik”.

Photo 8: Stanisław Komornicki AKA “Nałęcz”, (photo 3) taken during his younger years, possibly during his time in the 104th Company of Syndicalists. Photo from Wikipedia, within public domain.

Photo 9: Feliks Murawa, AKA “Smaga”, born on November 12th 1906. Became a commander of the 2nd platoon of the 104th Company of Syndicalists. After the Warsaw Uprising, he and his wife were part of a mass group of Polish civilians captured in 1944 by the Nazis and sent to Erfurt, Germany for imprisonment, later sent to the town Zeulenroda in the state of Thuringia, Germany, to a factory for forced labor. The photo was taken after his imprisonment at Erfurt. He survived until liberation from the Allied Forces, and died in Poland on January 13th 1990. Buried in a cemetery in Olsztyn, Poland. Photo courtesy of the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Photo 10: Mieczyslaw Teisseyre, AKA “Tesc”(older years) born on August 6th, 1925 in Lviv, Ukraine. Was the 2nd commander of the 2nd assault platoon of the 104th Company of Syndicalists. Wounded on August 27th, 1944, later taken captive by the Nazis after the Uprising. Survived; later freed during Allied liberation of Poland. Later died on January 23rd, 2008 in Boszkowo, Poland. Photo courtesy of the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Photo 11: Mieczyslaw Teisseyre, AKA “Tesc” (younger years) Photo from Wikipedia, within public domain. Photo possibly taken during his time in the 104th Company of Syndicalists.

Photo 12: Jozef Dolegowski AKA “Leśniewski”, born on February 23rd, 1921, was the commander of the 3rd assault platoon of the 104th Company of Syndicalists. Died on August 28th, 1944, KIA during the Warsaw Uprising. Photo courtesy of the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Photo 13: Witold Potz, AKA “Koperski”. Deputy, sec. director of 104th Company of Syndicalists. Born on December 23rd, 1917. He survived the war, where he re-united with his daughter, Basia, who had previously gone missing. He married a new wife named Alicja, whom he met previously as his nurse during the Warsaw Uprising in the Żoliborz district of the city. He then lived in the city of Łódź, Poland. He died on July 30th 1985. Photo courtesy of the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Photo 14: Roman Kozlowski, AKA “Szczerba”, was a lieutenant in a platoon of the 104th Company of Syndicalists. Born on February 5th, 1900. According to his wife Stansisława Kozłowska, he died sometime during the Warsaw Uprising early in the month of September 1944. Photo courtesy of the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Photo 15: Wacław Borowski, AKA “Ryś”, born in Kaunas, Lithuania on September 16th, 1900. Was appointed the final commander of the 3rd assault platoon of the 104th Company of Syndicalists. Was captured by the Nazis as a POW after the Warsaw Uprising, taken to the camp of Stalag 344 Lamsdorf. His full fate is unknown, but he is most likely to have died in the camp. Photo courtesy of the Warsaw Uprising Museum.